111 thoughts to “Open Thread Non-Petroleum March 11, 2023”

    1. “In the wake of the Silicon Valley Bank collapse, the squealing from the venture capitalist community will not stop until they get theirs. Of course, that’s not how they’re selling their demands. But as with the 2008 financial collapse, the Randian elites are covering their own asses first.”

  2. After three months global sea ice extent has dropped from lowest recorded to second lowest.

    2. When I go out to the Polar Science Center site
      http://psc.apl.uw.edu/research/projects/arctic-sea-ice-volume-anomaly/
      I see that the Daily Arctic Ice Volume (2nd graph down) has essentially stayed within a range with other readings.

      It appears that there is some equilibrium going on. This also is shown as a sideways motion in the Arctic Sea Ice Volume (1st graph down) growth starting from around 2012 to present:

      Meanwhile, the Antarctic, Greenland and glacier ice fields are melting.

      1. Interesting WP ( no relationship) article:
        Arctic ice has seen an ‘irreversible’ thinning since 2007, study says
        New research suggests the decline was a fundamental change unlikely to be reversed this century — perhaps proof the planet has passed an alarming climactic tipping point.

        https://wapo.st/3yCuZsO

        Rgds
        WP

        1. I clicked on your link. Interesting and like Don 43’s tips. The extent is decreasing yet the volume is about the same. Trying to wrap my head around that: The surface melting but the underlying volume remains the same. Are we sure of the volume?

    1. Not sure but I hear there is a bank ” Signature Bank ” with the same profile ( financing Silicon Valley , VC’s and SPAC’s ) next in line . Monday will tell .

        1. Indeed, but a updated version, and call it the [Elizabeth] Warren act.

    3. This is a special case.

      Where you have a bank whose customers are largely over the FDIC limits.

      They were offered ( I read ) special easy lines of credit but they had to do all or material part of their banking at SVB.

      SVB stupidly used too much of their deposits to buy long dated bonds to chase yield.

      As interest rates went up, those bonds got crushed and the customers wanted their money back.

      They were forced to convert unrealized losses to realized losses (couldn’t hold the bonds to maturity).

      I don’t believe this will spark “too much” contagion as this is a niche market.

      However, how many other banks have leveraged up on bonds and now interest rates are up so those bonds are unrealised LOSSES?

      1. > I don’t believe this will spark “too much” contagion as this is a niche market.

        everything is niche nowaday,s but everything is interconnected too these days, so from there I fear the contagion and also from cell phone induce panic…

        1. Most banks that anyone cares about are not niche. They serve the average Joe, like me.

          SVB specifically targeted silicon venture capitalists and some celebrities.

          1. “a bailout for the rich is regrettable but sound policy, but a bailout for poor people is dangerous socialism.”

      2. A big difference between this financial hiccup and prior ones is that this one is liability driven, not asset driven. The core issue with SVB – and most likely banks like it – is that they are running a huge gap in the duration AND liquidity of their liabilities and the duration of their assets. In the case of SVB – if they had been able to hold their assets to maturity they would not have had to realize any losses. Both the mortgages ( MBS, to be precise) and treasuries) at maturity are worth 100c on the dollar.
        It is the liquidity mismatch that caused this.

        Rgds
        WP

        1. In the meanwhile .
          ” Looks like it’s the European banks in the firing line today, SocGen down 7%, BNP down 8%, Credit Suisse nearly -11% and so on across the board this morning

          Seems the Fed’s magic money fix for SVB has not entirely quietened things down.
          BNP trading halted and CSB ‘s CDS hit new highs . Waiting for DB .

        2. ” is that they are running a huge gap in the duration AND liquidity of their liabilities and the duration of their assets. In the case of SVB”

          Yes!

          It was also caused because it’s customer base is over the FDIC limits. This is what exposed the duration mismatch.

          Other banks may be doing it, but their customers don’t have 10 million in their deposits.

          1. In order to structurally fix this type of issue something resembling Glass-Steagall needs to be put back into play.
            If the idea is to make depositary institutions custodians of customer’s deposits, there can’t be risk taking. These banks then would more or less operate like utilities. Money to run the operations could come from either charges to the depositors ( just like you pay for a deposit box at a bank) or perhaps from the profits from the risk taking side ( not the depository side) of the banking system. This would remove even the concept of bank runs because although depositors from bank A may withdraw lost of deposits it does not cause a maturity mismatch. The deposits these banks would hold would effectively be turned into reserves at the Fed and not put to work in any risky asset with either rate, default or duration risk.
            The issue is eminently solvable as long as the political will is there ( which is not the case because politicians are just so easy to buy).
            Rgds
            WP

    4. Banking is a confidence game. If the public loses confidence in banks, the financial system can’t function.

  4. Peak oil you say.

    SAUDI STATE-OWNED OIL GIANT SEES RECORD PROFIT OF $161BN

    Saudi oil giant Aramco has announced a record profit of $161.1bn (£134bn) for 2022, helped by soaring energy prices and bigger volumes. It represents a 46.5% rise for the state-owned company, compared with last year.

    Aramco’s president and CEO Amin Nasser said: “Given that we anticipate oil and gas will remain essential for the foreseeable future, the risks of underinvestment in our industry are real – including contributing to higher energy prices.”

    https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-64931074

  5. Geophysicists, climate and earth scientists are cowards. I tacked on a postscript to a POB post titled “Predicting Stratospheric Winds” from last month.

    https://peakoilbarrel.com/predicting-stratospheric-winds/ (scroll to the end, but before the comments)

    The gist is that a research journal editor took the time to single me out for submitting a peer-review comment which he did not approve of. I didn’t say anything bad, but just suggested to the authors of the article under review that they consider looking at the problem from another perspective. Which the authors did, and thanked me for the advice.

    AC1: ‘Reply on CC1’, Xiao Liu, 15 Feb 2023

    Yet evidently that is considered bad scientific practice as my ideas have not been approved by the climate science establishment, according to the editor. The authors were then cowed by the editor and it appears that citations to my previous research will be stricken. Read more on the link.

    I can only conclude that these guys have absolutely no clue to the actual geophysics. If not that, they are terrified that what I am suggesting is plausible and as straight-forward as predicting the tides, and so are biding their time in hope that the idea goes away.

    This is not a heck of a lot different than the responses from geologists and petroleum engineers to posts on crude oil depletion on this blog. It’s essentially saying how dare you enter the sanctified realm of the natural environment in which we alone are credentialled to study.

    I have been involved in all the engineering disciplines (electrical, mechanical, chemical), basic physics/material science research, and applied math & computer sciences, and never sensed this kind of isolation from ideas or innovation. Only in earth sciences does this happen.

    That’s why this blog has not disappeared (unlike a lot of other blogs) as it covers the gaps in our understanding in regards to natural resources and the environment.

      1. Bank runs caused by massive transfer of $$$ from low-interest savings accounts to 5% earning accounts in US Treasuries or CDs and Money Market accounts tied to the Treasuries. For the longest time CDs had dropped to as low as 0.25% and so this became a wakeup call to good to pass up.

        The SV Bank also supposedly had an API that allowed sophisticated users to move $$$ around via programs and scripts.

    2. https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?blog=Market-Ticker

      “The so-called Chief Risk Officer at SVB had a masters in….. public administration. Anyone care to bet if she passed any form of advanced mathematics — you know, like for example Calculus or Statistics? Do you think she understood exponents and why this graph made clear that concentration of risk and duration was stupid and likely to blow up in everyone’s face — including hers?”

      KD brilliant analysis, great financially, a baffling climate change denier and birther.

  7. “I’m literally a billionaire who pays no taxes and says we must cut welfare for poors but now I’m insisting the government must pay me 100 cents on the dollar for all my bets” is a helluva drug

    “how basic banking works”:
    1. your deposits are insured up to $250k by the FDIC
    2. if the bank shuts and you had more than $250k with the bank, tough shit

    it’s pretty simple, SVB customers knew this & made bad choices anyway.

    “no one told me you could actually LOSE money. I thought that only happened to poor people”

    1. Bailing out is MORAL HAZARD.

      You send the message that it is smart to take huge risks, because you will get bailed out.

      You are rewarding the crooks.

      Yet another fuck up by the FED.

      2. The bank investors are not being bailed out…the depositors are.

        “Customers’ deposits will be protected. That includes small businesses across the country that bank there and need to make payroll, pay their bills and stay open for business,” Biden said, adding that no losses will be suffered by the taxpayers.
        “Instead, the money will come from the fees that banks pay into the deposit insurance fund,” he explained.
        The management of these banks will be fired: “If the bank is taken over by FDIC, the people running the bank should not work there anymore,” Biden said.
        Investors in the banks will not be protected: “They knowingly took a risk and when the risk didn’t pay off, investors lose their money. That’s how capitalism works,” Biden added.”

  8. Supposedly drought-stricken California bracing for floods. The failure of land management in the American West knows no bounds.

    The state used to be wet. Reintroducing beavers would be a good start.

    1. Funny.
      Like protection of manatee habitat can eradicate gulf region hurricanes.

      1. Not sure what you mean, but the reason the West is dry is not a lack of water. The problem is that the rains are seasonal and every attempt is made to make it flow off the land as quickly as possible.

        For example, they paved the Los Angeles rive to speed up the flow of water, and Las Vegas has huge flood tunnels — 600 miles of them — to get rid of the water as quickly as possible. Then they spend the rest of the year whinging that it is too dry and begging for subsidized water.

        Another insanely stupid idea id the vast impermeable surface parking lots sunbelt cities so adore. This prevents rainwater from seeping into the ground. They should all be removed.

        For example, Phoenix AZ gets 20 cm of rain a year, 200 liters per square meter. The cities area is 1338 square kilometers, about1.3 billion square meters. So we are talking about 268 billion liters a year.

        The population is 1.625 million. So each person has about 165000 liters of water.

        1. I’ve lived in Arizona.
          Beaver habitat is a minuscule part of that state, and getting all of the beaver back like before humans took over would make
          close to zero difference on how many humans could live there.
          Maybe a couple thousand, if they were living simply.
          Arizona has over 7 million people.

          Over grazing, deforestation and concrete are historical problems that are 10,000x’s bigger than beaver loss when it comes to AZ water supply.

          I also had a home on land with beaver in another state. They take down lots of trees…huge cottonwoods. Very impressive.
          Just saw a few beavers yesterday.

          1. It’s important to remember that the beaver population of North America fell by more than 99.9% in the 19th century. Like the bison, they were almost completely wiped out.

            Arizona may not look like an ideal beaver habitat now, but one big reason for that is that there are no beavers there. Beavers create their own habitat.

            More generally, people have no idea what the country looked like a few centuries ago. Desertification happens because each generation barely notices the changes. Over the course of a few centuries the “Overton window” on what is an acceptable landscape shifts dramatically, but nobody lives long enough to see it.

  9. ARCTIC CLIMATE MODELING TOO CONSERVATIVE

    Climate models used by the UN’s IPCC and others to project climate change are not accurately reflecting what the Arctic’s future will be. Researchers at the University of Gothenburg argue that the rate of warming will be much faster than projected.

    https://phys.org/news/2023-03-arctic-climate.html

    1. Meanwhile we have the infamous Willow Project:

      US GOVERNMENT APPROVES [LARGE] ALASKA OIL AND GAS DRILLING PROJECT

      It is slated to produce up to 180,000 barrels of oil a day. According to US Bureau of Land Management estimates, that means it will generate up to 278 million metric tonnes of CO2e over its 30-year lifetime – the equivalent of adding two million cars to US roads every year.

      https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64943603

      1. Pristine wilderness should be preserved without disturbance in my view, but the total amount of oil anticipated from this project over the next thirty years is equivalent to less than one week’s worth at the current global rate of consumption. Seems like that alone is not going to push the needle much as far as the climate goes.

        1. Biden has to walk a politically feasible line between supporting renewable energy, going green and clean on the one hand…….. and dealing with the never ending propaganda pushed by the oil industry and the Republican Party these days.
          The actual and OBVIOUS truth is that we ARE and WILL BE addicted to oil for at least another generation or so, even with the best of luck in terms of electrifying our transportation .

          So Biden has to be realistic about approving some oil production as an every day practical economic and political issue.

      2. The irony is that, in order to protect the investment, the basis of design will assume worst case climate change consequences, so: full permafrost thaw, average temperatures around six degrees warmer, maximum annual temperature close to forty. Just as offshore projects will now be using one, or maybe up to two, meters of sea level rise.

  10. Can someone give a novice like me an explanation?

    Bitcoin USD (BTC-USD)
    CCC – CoinMarketCap. Currency in USD

    24,240.55+3,601.03 (+17.45%)
    As of 03:16PM UTC. Market open.

  11. I’m not arguing that even the richest countries such as the USA WILL pull thru the coming crash built in because we’re in overshoot, but I do believe there’s a fair to good possibility that some people in some countries, and maybe even some countries taken as a whole, can make it thru the bottleneck more or less whole……… meaning without civil war, people dead in large numbers from violence, starvation, disease or exposure, etc.
    It’s possible that we will be able to keep the electricity on, and the water and sewer systems working, food in stores, and cops on the street……. with good luck and good leadership.

    The naysayers just don’t want to look at the upside possibilities when it comes to renewable energy generation and energy conservation that’s possible using today’s technologies……

    Consider this article for instance.

    https://cleantechnica.com/2023/03/13/with-heat-from-heat-pumps-us-energy-requirements-could-plummet-by-60/

    I never did like Smil in the first place. For years he went around denying pretty much all the upside possibilities involving renewable energy, conservation, etc.

    And just about everybody, left or right politically, denies the realities involved in dealing with the transition to renewable energy, one way or another.
    The hard core right just insists that it CAN’T happen.
    And the environmental camp refuses to acknowledge that getting it done is going to be a long slow and probably very painful process.

    But at least the left side environmental and political camp have a good reason. The public is fickle and easily scared and doesn’t want to hear any bad news about being comfortably warm with a cheap power bill, lol.

    1. Yes,

      Air to air heat pumps are not getting enough attention. There was a lot of optimism about the benefits of better technology 1-2 years ago on this forum, and now ithere are visible results on the shelves in Northern Europe also. Some friends bought a heat pump recently and it was marketed with 6-1 efficiency (heat energy output compared to electricity usage) and a lot more resilience with reagards to it working when the temperature is low. That is compared to the prior generation of technology promising a 3/4-1 efficiency ratio and not working as intended if temperatures got to below for example -10 celsius. The price was not exorbitant at about 2000 dollars, fitting into decent sized home (100 m2+).

      In Norway a lot of attention is going into building very well insulated new apartment blocks, and we are getting a steadily higher percentage of detached houses with either ground based heating or air-to-air heat pumps. Central heating are also utilitised in the cities burning trash and residue wood products. The high standard of living in Norway together with rich petro based state financials makes it easier to facilitate energy policies here than most places. Nevertheless it is very possible to reduce the heat bill that is currently mostly based on electricity from 40 twh to something lower. The idea is to work towards getting most transportation electric based (should be possible with a 20-30 twh expenditure) and still have enough electricity to fuel most industry on renewables. The last priority is highly ambitious but most parts of the industry is already reliant on “cheap” electricity and can run on a mixture of electricity and green hydrogen in the future. Probably some fossil fuels are still needed into the mix as well since it is difficult process metals and fertilizers with renewables (both a hydrogen volume challenge and a profitability challenge).

        1. A heat pump will still produce the same amount of heat, per kilowatt hour of electricity used, without regard to the end use of that heat. If you try to heat an old house with a heat pump, it takes the same damned amount of heat it takes to do the job whether you get it by burning gas, or oil, or firewood, or hydrogen, or electric resistance heating.

          Anybody who knows doo doo from apple butter about heating and cooling knows this as well as he knows his own pay rate or salary.

          So…….. the question, really, is whether a heat pump can provide the needed heat cheaper than any of these other methods. This is THE question, period, as to whether individual home owners should go for a heat pump.

          But it’s also critically important from a society or nationwide point of view to recognize the fact that using heat pumps means buying less gas ( or possibly oil or coal) to generate electricity. This means spending less money on imported fuel bought from countries that are to put it mildly, NOT friends of the English people. It means the kilowatt hours generated by wind and solar farms go farther.

          The article is a piece of shit, because it avoids the real questions and issues.

          BUT it does make one good point. Installing a heat pump in row houses could be a problem.

          I don’t really have a clue when it comes to upgrading a century old house without insulation to modern standards without spending a fortune on the job, and doing it with the owners in the house makes it an even tougher job.

          But I have read that one reason the better off people always seem to be dressed to the nines is that they habitually heat their houses to as little as sixty degrees Fahrenheit.

          So sitting down to dinner wearing a winter weight suit would actually be quite comfortable, lol.

          1. Reversible air conditioners/heat pumps are very popular here in Alabama, as they are all over the South. We have one right here in this house I am living in. The reason they are is very simple. They are very economical and you only have to buy one machine for both heating and cooling.

            However, heat pumps have one very serious problem. The colder the weather, the less economical they are. Heat pumps, like air conditioners, are basically heat exchangers. Heat comes out one side and cool air out the other. So when it gets very cold outside, they don’t work worth a damn. That’s why they all have a resistive heater inside for super cold days. On very cold days even resistive electrical heat is more economical. In fact, if it is cold enough outside, heat pumps don’t work at all.

            So it is no wonder that heat pumps are far more popular here in Alabama than they are in Michigan.

          2. Actually heat pumps are 3times more efficient than electric heat but you are correct they don’t do much to improve the situation considering how much gas is being used in generating electricity.
            A CC gas generator is up to 60% efficient in turning gas into electricity. But the costs of generating and distribution eat up 60% of what is produced. So if you have 100000btus you might produce 17.6kw but only deliver 7kw to a home . If you convert that to heat with a space heater you get 24,000btus but a heat pump (inverter compressor) at a COP of 3 is 72,000btus so it is much better but still not great. Standard efficiency gas furnaces will produce 80,000btus from the same therm. Solar power doesn’t work at night when you need heat or very well in winter. Wind is intermittent as well. If you want heat in northern climates you’re going to have to burn something it just the way it is.

            1. Actually heat pumps are 3times more efficient than electric heat but….

              No they are not! One cannot make such a blanket statement without considering the outside temperature. The efficiency of heat pumps depends entirely on the outside temperature. Why does everyone keep ignoring that fact?

              If one were to plot the efficiency of heat pumps one would need to plot it on a sliding scale against the outside temperature. They are extremely efficient at warmer outside temperatures and become increasingly less efficient as the temperature drops.

              Here in Alabama, because of our mild winters, reservable air conditioners/heat pumps are installed in almost all new construction. The house I live in, my son’s house, has one. I doubt that is the case in Minnesota.


              Heat Pumps – Performance and Efficiency Ratings

            2. Ron
              From the article you sent.

              “The typical practical value for a heat pump is in the range 2 – 4.”

              What you say is true with old fixed speed compressors. When the temperature drops into single digits the mass flow drops reducing efficiency. New inverter heat pumps aren’t limited to 60hz some can ramp to 120hz restoring mass flow increasing efficiency. So most newer heat pumps work well down to -5 and some down to -15f

            3. My link said that heat pumps work at temperatures as low as -5 degrees C. That is 23 degrees F. 23 degrees above 0 F!

              You wrote: So most newer heat pumps work well down to -5 and some down to -15f.

              You say the new technology heat pumps have improved so much that instead of working at 23F degrees they can now work at -5 to -15 degrees F. Incredible!

              I know that a train of heat exchangers can temperatures down to that level, and even lower. That is how they get natural gas down to the levels needed to liquefy them. But they must be hooked in series. I worked around them In Saudi Arabia. But they must be hooked up in series, as a train, each one taking the temperature a little lower until the gas finally became a liquid. I never counted them but there were dozens of them, perhaps 50 or more. That’s why they called them a train.

              I am sure you could get temperatures from -15F degrees outside to 72F degrees inside if you used several of them hooked up in series. But that great of a change is far greater than the ability of a single heat exchanger.

              Sorry JT, but I am going to need a link that announces that dramatic improvement in efficiency.

            4. Ron

              https://www.mitsubishicomfort.com/why-mitsubishi-electric-zoned-heating-systems

              -13f

              I really don’t want to debate this I’ve worked in thermodynamics/cryogenics for 40 years. I can build a -100f chiller and have for vapor recovery. Rankine Cycle is well known and is built on mass flow. To move a certain quantity of heat from one place another requires a certain amount of mass flow basic BTUs. Inverter compressors overcome air to air heat pump limitation. But they do not overcome Carnot efficiency. Obviously today’s heat pumps are better but who cares I certainly don’t. I was just trying to help your argument that it can’t work. The point of my message is that heat pumps have advanced as far as they can but are still not better than just burning something. Like NG

            5. Not a problem JT. Your link did not give much information but I think they are talking about cascading compressors. That’s why they call them “trane” systems. I have always heard it called a “train” system. Pronounced the same. At any rate, it is not one heat exchanger, it is two or more heat compressors linked together.

              Thanks for the exchange.

  12. People can argue their pet single cause hobby horse, but they can’t argue that something fairly fundamental isn’t happening with the European economy. From an objective “growth is unsustainable” standpoint this is inevitable, or an ecological “growth is killing us” view this is a good thing, and the quicker the better. There’s an argument to be made that if there’s going to be a widespread crash the best place to be is first.

    1. “collapse early….beat the rush”
      Credit Suisse soon to make headlines?

      Some people call for capitulation to Putin…embrace totalitarianism early allowing
      ‘more time to get used to it’, and hoping for more favorable terms.

      1. Good call it did make headlines. I think Deutsche Bank could trigger a financial shit storm if it starts to buckle.

        Credit Suisse shares are up ~ 35% on news of bailout.

          1. Exactly, seems most global banks share prices where at an all time ~ 2006 and never recovered after 2008.

            1. I suppose that is a good thing and was perhaps by government regulator design…the financial sector has gotten way too large. I think it still is, but I’m not schooled on that whole subject.

    1. It’s a scumbag article, and there was no actual reason given for the cause of death. It could have been anything that lead to his end. Ivermectin is a Nobel-prize winning medicine that was originally used to treat parasite infestation in humans. Hundreds of billions of doses have been prescribed over many decades, saving millions of lives. It is true that there are variants of ivermectin intended for veterinarian use, but as I understand it, it is mainly a question of dose concentration for large animals. While I have no opinion on the efficacy of ivermectin in relation to the treatment of covid infection, decades of data clearly show ivermectin is safe for human consumption and one of few effective anti-parasitical treatments. It has been an FDA approved drug accordingly over the very long course of many decades of human use. This article you’ve presented is big pharma propaganda, and you’ve committed a dis-service to humanity by giving it even the slightest acknowledgement as a credible commentary on the use of ivermectin.

      1. Well Mike, according to the Mayo Clinic, side effects of Invermectin include:

        MORE COMMON
        • Difficulty in moving
        • muscle pain or stiffness
        • pain in the joints
        • swollen, painful, or tender lymph glands in the armpit
        LESS COMMON
        • Black, tarry stools
        • bloating or swelling of the face, arms, hands, lower legs, or feet
        • chest pain
        • chills
        • cold sweats
        • cough
        • dizziness or lightheadedness
        • dizziness, faintness, or lightheadedness when getting up from lying or sitting position
        • eye or eyelid irritation, pain, redness, or swelling
        • fast, pounding, or irregular heartbeat or pulse
        • feeling of constant movement of self or surroundings
        • fever
        • painful or difficult urination
        • rapid weight gain
        • sensation of spinning
        • shakiness in the legs, arms, hands, or feet
        • sore throat
        • sores, ulcers, or white spots on the lips or in the mouth
        • swollen glands
        • tingling of the hands or feet
        • trembling or shaking of the hands or feet
        • trouble breathing
        • unusual bleeding or bruising
        • unusual sleepiness
        • unusual tiredness or weakness
        • unusual weight gain or loss

        1. And, for the record (and in case this conversation degenerates into an anti-vaxxer dedate), multiple major health organizations, including the Food and Drug Administration, U.S. Centers for Disease Control, the European Medicines Agency, and the World Health Organization have stated that ivermectin is not authorized or approved to treat COVID-19.

      2. “ivermectin is safe for human consumption and one of few effective anti-parasitical treatments”

        Maybe he died of River Blindness because he just wasn’t taking enough Ivermectin?

        Merck Statement on Ivermectin use During the COVID-19 Pandemic
        https://www.merck.com/news/merck-statement-on-ivermectin-use-during-the-covid-19-pandemic/

        Effect of Ivermectin vs Placebo on Time to Sustained Recovery in Outpatients With Mild to Moderate COVID-19
        https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2797483?utm_campaign=articlePDF&utm_medium=articlePDFlink&utm_source=articlePDF&utm_content=jama.2022.18590

      3. It’s a damned good article, and I recommend that anybody using this drug, or has friends or family using it, read it very carefully…… several times over.

        There’s pretty much zero evidence, to the best of my knowledge, that this drug is even remotely safe judged by the usual standards except when used under the supervision of a physician, and even then…… using it depends on his or her judgement as to the benefits versus the risks involved.

        People who believe it’s safe in large amounts over long periods are in the same boat as those who look around and see lots of people smoking, without anybody just keeling over dead after finishing a cigarette, lol.

        You just can’t go by UNINFORMED so called common sense or personal experience in such matters.

        Consider sugar in our food for instance. I grew up thinking sugar was a perfectly ok food. We used it by the ten pound bag making jellies and jams, canning fruit, baking cakes and pies, putting it in iced tea and coffee. I put it in gravy on my biscuits.

        My parents didn’t know any better. Neither did our neighbors or friends. We didn’t see the consequences, because everybody was using it, and the occasional stroke or heart attack due to circulatory disease CAUSED in large part by sugar were dismissed as the result of other factors, or the work of God.

        Now we know better……. some of us at least. Sugar is killing us by the thousands every single day.

        Some of us will NEVER learn, because we WANT to believe we’re the victims of various people or politicians or businesses robbing us of our money, or freedom, or health…. and when you WANT to believe…… you do.

        1. The USA government food pyramid is flawed.

          Humans are hunter gatherers who ate meat (including the fat), green vegetables and occasionally some fruit (not everyday).

          See any seriously overweight person and you might find a sugary drink in their hand. They are addicted to sugar.

          I ate nothing but meat and green vegetables and lost 50 lbs and not excercising. My physical and mental health was the best it had ever been.

          And I no longer craved sugary things, I craved meat.

          I remember being a kid and my mom wouldn’t let me eat the chicken skin on a chicken or bacon because there was too much fat.

          Animal fat are the animals energy reserves, that is what you want!!!! that is why it tastes so good!!!!

  14. You think you’re just getting a boring old payroll account, but really, you’re helping the C Suite earn multi million dollar bonuses by funding a highly levered portfolio of long-dated Treasurys and MBS.

    1. People vote with their wallets, and by the date their old car needs to be replaced (by which I mean they think it needs to be replaced). Tesla sells 6 times as many EV’s as BMW, and by the end of the year it will be 7 times. It doesn’t actually matter which they prefer: BMW can’t provide the vehicles. And with Tesla’s price cuts, I don’t actually believe that survey reflects the current reality.

      Edit: I didn’t even notice the Toyota line. It just goes to show how ridiculous this survey is, being that Toyota only sold 14,000 EV’s last year, and their upcoming EV sedan is a re-badged BYD.

    2. In 2022 Tesla model Y was the 4th most popular car (not just EV) and model 3 was the 7th most popular car in the world. I have no doubt that in 2023 model Y will displace Toyota corolla and become the most popular car in the world.
      Tesla could make 10 million cars this year and sell every single one of them. When demand saturates they can simply cut the price and still make a profit. Other EV manufacturers lose money on their EVs and cannot afford to make deep cuts in their price. At this point it is game over. By 2030 Tesla will have almost the entire high end EV market and Chinese manufacturers will have the low end market. VW, GM, Ford and Hyundai may survive as niche players. Toyota will go the Kodak way.

  18. All is not well in the state of France .
    “1.Tomorrow is the big day in France then the decision on the new pension law will be made. The strikes are coming to an end at the moment, except for those of the rubbish collectors. The dirt is piling up in Paris with rats really everywhere, where Paris was the ‘front runner’ anyway.

    Today began the three ‘ anti inflation’ months. Indeed, the French government is meddling in everything, even the price of groceries. The French need to be protected! That’s why the government deficit is so high.

    Food inflation rose to 14.8%…. so intervene

    …..The ‘anti-inflation quarter’ starts today in supermarkets
    Retailers have pledged to cut the prices of a selection of products of their choice for three months. But what exactly is this about? Each supermarket chain may charge lower prices on a range of everyday food products of their choice from this Wednesday. They “undertake to go beyond their usual spring offers”. The listed retail chains include Carrefour, Intermarché, Auchan, Casino, Cora, Lidl, Aldi and Système U. To help consumers find their way around, a blue, white and red “anti-inflation quarter” logo will be applied to products covered by the promotion. “The logos are currently being printed and you will see them on the shelves early next week,” he said. The economy minister also warned that checks will be planned to ensure that the reduction in certain products is really due to a reduction in distributors’ margins. From June, there will be renewed negotiations with the agricultural sector and the food industry to reduce prices. There is also criticism. Three associations, UFC-Que Choisir, Familles Rurales and Consommation Logement Cadre de Vie, consider it wrong that the government ” relies on the goodwill of supermarket chains to reduce their profit margins “. They want the “SRP+10” provision of the Egalim Act, which allows supermarkets to sell food products up to 10% above the purchase price, to be suspended…..

  19. Just listened to Nate’s latest; reminded me of this. I have it on DVD. Here’s the YouTube.

    The Great Indian Wars 1540 – 1890
    https://youtu.be/KSF7D9dmTOw

    The introduction of the horse flipped the balance of power amongst many competing native communities.

    Mounted nomadic pastoralism in the northern Great Plains goes back a few hundred years at most.

    According to Battiste Good’s winter count, the Teton (Lakota branch of Sioux) first saw horses in 1700. They soon gained them and then spread west to the Black Hills.

    From ghost dance to death camps: Nazi Germany as a crisis cult.
    https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1990-30761-001

  20. I hate to admit it, but sometimes the hard core right has a point about the major mass media getting some really important things wrong.

    ( This is not to say that Fox and such sources don’t get almost everything wrong, lol.)

    Here’s one of them. The Russians and Ukrainians are locked into a literal life and death long term battle for a city that’s said by the major middle of the road to slightly leftish or liberal media to be all about morale and maintaining the fighting spirit of the Ukrainians and the the determination of the Russians to prove they can win this fight…….. the biggest and most publicized battle of the entire war.

    But if you dig just a little bit deeper…….. you will quickly find out why both sides are not only determined, but COMPELLED to hold on and hopefully win in the end.

    It’s all about the roads, and transportation of men and equipment all thru that general area. The side that controls the roads wins the logistics battle. This city is where all the major highways in that part of the country meet each other.

    Logistics have more to do with winning wars than any other given factor, according to more or less standard military text books.

    And ninety nine percent of what I’ve seen in the media totally misses this critical point……. THE critical point.

  21. It is something that I have already seen. It is interesting and reassuring. Some phenomenon are blocking the melting of the arctic sea ice storage and I think it is linked with the weakening of AMOC or if you prefer the global weakening of the thermohaline convection in the North Atlantic, which is due to the melting of the Greenland inlandsis and the melting of the sea ice storage of Arctic ocean since the end of the 1980s (something like 10-15000 cubic kilometers of fresh water introduced in nordic seas and Arctic ocean). That’s called a negative feedback. That means also that the day we reach the equilibrium of carbon emissions with its removal from the atmosphere, the Arctic sea ice will recover quickly, helping reversing the future current state of the climate.

    1. “It is something that I have already seen. It is interesting and reassuring”

      I’m glad you’ve found a way to feel good about how its all turning out.
      I feel that someday [maybe even with 1 million years] that insect diversity will recover nicely.

    2. JEAN-FRANÇOIS —

      You seem to be confusing time scales. Global warming in happening over mere decades, and accelerating. At most, the world has nine years until breaching the 1.5°C threshold (for at least one year). Significant melting of Greenland’s ice, for example, is happening on geologic time scales, a few percent in centuries. Maybe you should rely on what climat scientists are telling us rather than what you THINK will happen. It seems extremely unlikely we will be saved by salinity changes in the Arctic, at least if you listen to those who study the many factors involved.

      1. Don’t worry, I am fully aware that the current situation of the sea ice pack of Arctic ocean is only temporary. One day or another the melting will start again. I am fairly confident that the carbon dioxde emission scenarios, used as a basis for the climate modelisations, are based on ridicule assumptions about the availability of fossil fuels. The economic and social chaos resulting from slight shortages of fossil fuels such as oil (especially for non-oil producing countries of Asia or Europe alongside the decrease of oil exports mentioned earlier on peakoilbarrel) or gas, after the beginning of the 2030s, will encourage countries to find actively substitutes such as the production of gas by methanisation of microalgal biomass.

  25. Another carbon bomb, I guess it’s not just increasing Chinese coal use we have to worry about.

    ARGENTINA SECURES FUNDING BOOST TO KICKSTART GAS EXPORTS FROM ‘CARBON BOMB’

    Argentina has secured $540 million from the Latin America Development Bank to finance a new pipeline that would allow for “record” gas exports. The bank announced a deal last week to finance the Néstor Kirchner pipeline, a project that would allow the country to export gas from the Argentinian Patagonia’s Vaca Muerta field, which campaigners have described as a ‘carbon bomb’ due to huge emissions potential. Vaca Muerta currently holds the world’s second-largest shale gas deposit and could lead to “record oil and gas production,” according to Argentina’s president Alberto Fernández.

    The move could contribute to pushing global temperature rise beyond 1.5C – a threshold above which climate impacts will be significantly worse for people and ecosystems. The International Energy Agency stated in a 2021 report that new oil and gas projects are incompatible with international climate goals.

    https://www.climatechangenews.com/2023/03/16/argentina-secures-funding-boost-to-kickstart-carbon-bomb-exports-gas-oil/

  26. Ukraine forces have the target detection to target destruction loop down to about 90 seconds. One year in and Ukraine is rolling out the Bradley’s; Russia the BTR-50’s.

  27. The FAO (Global) Food Price Index drops again in February, albeit only marginally…

  30. Chat GTP on peak oil:

    The concept of “peak oil” refers to the hypothetical point in time when global oil production reaches its maximum level and then starts to decline. There is debate among experts about whether or not the world has already reached peak oil.

    Some argue that peak oil has already occurred, pointing to the fact that global oil production levels have plateaued in recent years. Others suggest that peak oil is still in the future, and that advances in technology and exploration will allow us to continue to find and extract oil for years to come.

    It’s worth noting that even if the world has not yet reached peak oil, many experts agree that we will need to transition away from our dependence on fossil fuels in the coming decades in order to mitigate the worst effects of climate change. This will likely involve developing alternative sources of energy and improving energy efficiency, regardless of whether or not peak oil has already occurred.

    The point when oil production reaches its peak is considered hypothetical because it depends on various factors that are difficult to predict with certainty, such as changes in technology, oil prices, and global demand.

    Oil reserves are finite, so at some point, production will indeed begin to decline. However, the exact timing of this decline is difficult to forecast, as it depends on a range of variables that are difficult to predict accurately. For example, technological advances could make it possible to extract oil from previously inaccessible locations, or changes in global demand could alter the rate of production.

    Furthermore, the point at which oil production peaks does not necessarily mean that we will run out of oil immediately. Instead, it represents the point at which production starts to decline, and we may still have significant reserves of oil that can be extracted for many years or even decades.

    Regardless of when exactly we reach peak oil, it is widely recognized that our dependence on fossil fuels is unsustainable in the long term, and we need to transition to renewable sources of energy as soon as possible to address the challenges of climate change and resource depletion.

    Maybe not the greatest content, but not bad, and it took me less than thirty seconds to generate. Food for thought.

    Meanwhile much much more is in the works. A much better version of his capability will be in your Word software very soon.

    1. I find it interesting that ‘Hal’ keeps saying that ‘we’ this and ‘we’ that.
      So I guess the computer is part of ‘we’?
      Well, I suppose that beats the alternative.

      1. Natural Language Processing with massively more training data ( Big Data ).

        NLP has been around for ages; Big Data is recent (Hardware = 64-bit, Moores Law, Cheap Ram and Disk).

        ChatGPT will be great until it by accidentally starts producing conversations from a PORN movie that has the same name as your company.

        If you have ever worked on a software project, it is constant interaction with human stakeholders as business requirements are constantly changing and not available on the internet to mine.

        standing ovation!

        1. ChatGPT not yet able to do emergent behavior, which is discovering something NEW. It also does not confirm a new discovery as in producing a substantiating statement if you offer the evidence. This means that it executes only by pattern matching to info in the knowledgebase that it has access to.

    1. I hope that all vehicle sales have peaked.
      A decline by half would be a nice start, the world is overrun with these machines.
      All of those residual sales should be electric with the decade.
      And then most ICE vehicles will fade to gone by 2050.
      No tear shed.

      1. I have no doubt that we Yankees could easily get by with half as many personal vehicles.

        But the process of cutting back is going to be very painful indeed.

        The working people at the bottom of our economic heap are already having one hell of a tough time finding second or third hand cars that they simply MUST have to get to work.

        And I don’t see anything at all on the new car market that looks as if it will sell cheap enough to be affordable to such people over the next few years.

        It’s one thing to talk about electric cars and mass transit.

        And it’s another to talk about a possible political and economic course of action that would put us on the road to sustainability.
        That can potentially happen, just as we went to a wartime economic system for WWII.

        But it’s not going to happen without a lot of pain and misery along the way.

        If I were in a position to do so, I would seriously consider mandating vehicle manufacturers having to build some stripped down, super simple, super durable plain jane vehicles.

        Something tells me they would or will sell like ice water in hell in the not so far distant future, as more and more people are very likely to find themselves sliding down the economic ladder towards the bottom.

        I have friends in the residential rental business who have deliberately steered away from the nicer properties they could have bought to hold…… their reasoning being that when a potential tenant’s income falls by a third…… the easiest way for him to make ends meet is to rent a cheaper house….. and drive a cheaper car as well.

        So far they’ve done quite well, and most of their new tenants are high rent refugees….. retirees from up north. They can get a place around here comparable to what they had in the Northeast for half what they were paying up that way.

        But now they’re wondering if times might get bad enough that people in the low end of the market will have to start doubling up…… resulting in their potential income taking a nose dive.

        1. OFM , “But the process of cutting back is going to be very painful indeed.”
          I have seen university students banging the desk because it took 120 seconds instead of 60 seconds to download a website . ” You talkin to me ” — Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver 🙂

    1. No, I don’t think that will happen. They tried that once and over a thousand of them wound up in jail and another thousand are yet to be tried.

      There will not be much more than a hundred or so Trump-backing idiots that show up to protest his arrest. They are idiots but still not dumb enough to volunteer for a jail sentence.

      To those who are unclear as to what Mike was talking about, it was Trump’s announcement that he will be arrested Tuesday for paying hush money to Stormy Daniels to keep his affair with her quiet.

      1. Indeed. I said as much to Mom. And the Law will be ready for them this time.

        The ought to arrest him this weekend to avoid the Tuesday crush.

      2. Michael Cohen (Trump’s former personal attorney) went to prison because of what Trump did. He now has a personal vendetta against Trump.

        Alan Weisselberg ( Trump’s former accountant ) is working with the FBI and has been imprisoned for what he did for Trump.

        In a fair justice system, Trump would already be in prison. He is obviously guilty of many crimes.

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